1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
An ink jet printer is a widely known liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects a liquid from a liquid ejecting head to a recording medium. The ink jet printer includes a carriage and a liquid ejecting head mounted on the carriage and performs printing by ejecting an ink (liquid) from nozzles of the liquid ejecting head while moving the carriage in a scanning manner.
Ink jet printers are roughly divided into an on-carriage type in which an ink cartridge that supplies an ink to a liquid ejecting head is mounted on a carriage and an off-carriage type in which an ink cartridge is not mounted on a carriage but is connected to a liquid ejecting head via a tube.
In the on-carriage type ink jet printer, since the ink cartridge is mounted on the carriage, there is a problem that it is difficult to increase the capacity of the ink cartridge.
The off-carriage type ink jet printer needs a structure that compensates for a pressure loss caused by a tube that connects the liquid ejecting head and the ink cartridge and a structure for preventing the tube from impeding the movements of the carriage. Therefore, the off-carriage type has a problem that the apparatus is large in size.
JP-A-11-58769 discloses an ink recording apparatus (ink jet printer) in which an ink tank (subsidiary tank) provided on the carriage is supplied with an ink by docking an ink replenishing tank provided outside the carriage to the ink tank. This system is termed herein the docking system. The ink jet printer of the docking system includes an ink tank mounted on a carriage and an ink replenishing tank that is not mounted on the carriage. The ink tank is provided with an ink filling opening and the ink replenishing tank is provided with an ink supply opening that can be connected to and disconnected from the ink filling opening of the ink tank. The ink filling opening becomes engaged with the ink supply opening, due to a movement of the carriage, so that the ink is supplied into the ink tank.
The docking type ink jet printer has a risk that an air bubble may flow into the ink tank mounted on the carriage. Therefore, there arises a need to provide a valve structure that inhibits air bubbles from flowing into the ink tank, leading to a problem that the apparatus becomes complicated.